Quotes About Art

Now the second common characteristic of fiction follows from this, and it is that fiction is presented in such a way that the reader has the sense that it is unfolding around him. This doesn't mean he has to identify himself with the character or feel compassion for the character or anything like that. It just means that fiction has to be largely presented rather than reported. Another way to say it is that though fiction is a narrative art, it relies heavily on the element of drama.

In the last twenty years the colleges have been emphasizing creative writing to such an extent that you almost feel that any idiot with a nickel's worth of talent can emerge from a writing class able to write a competent story. In fact, so many people can now write competent stories that the short story as a medium is in danger of dying of competence. We want competence, but competence by itself is deadly. What is needed is the vision to go with it, and you do not get this from a writing class.

It's always wrong of course to say that you can't do this or you can't do that in fiction. You can do anything you can get away with, but nobody has ever gotten away with much.

poetry is always dependent on realism, that you have to be a realist or you can't be a poet. Mrs.

There is nothing like being pleased with your own work - and this is the best stage - before it is published and begins to be misunderstood.

Those who believe that art proceeds from a healthy, and not from a diseased, faculty of the mind will take what he shows them as a revelation, not of what we ought to be but of what we are at a given time and under given circumstances; that is, as a limited revelation but revelation nevertheless.

The fact is that if the writer's attention is on producing a work of art, a work that is good in itself, he is going to take great pains to control every excess, everything that does not contribute to this central meaning and design. He cannot indulge in sentimentality, in propagandizing, or in pornography and create a work of art, for all these things are excesses. They call attention to themselves and distract from the work as a whole.

The writer can choose what he writes about but he cannot choose what he is able to make live, and so as far as he is concerned, a living deformed character is acceptable and a dead whole one is not. The Christian writer particularly will feel that whatever his initial gift is, it comes from God; and no matter how minor a gift it is, he will not be willing to destroy it by trying to use it outside its proper limits.

Only art could make fiction beautiful; only reality could sustain such intense art

Tell The Reader To Go Jump In The Lake The writer is only free when he can tell the reader to go jump in the lake. You want, of course, to get what you have to show across to him, but whether he likes it or not is no concern of the writer. ~Flannery O'Connor

Let us intoxicate ourselves with ink , since we lack the nectar of the gods

and since, human speech is like a cracked tin kettle, on which we hammer out tunes to make bears dance when we long to move the stars

Flaubert Gustave Flaubert

There are many examples of great songs that become more famous when they are covered.

Artists know they need to have digital presences to build and bolster their fan base, and fans have exploited that fact.

I would still love to do more Handel. I think Handel was a fantastic composer. I did lots of Vivaldi, but it's also important to do the music of Handel, one of the greatest composers of the 18th century.

Making music is fantastic.

Making movies is difficult and you get disorientated sometimes - even when you're working with fantastic talent.

I loved 'The Artist.' I thought it was fantastic.

I live my life in a sea of clothes. And it's fantastic to be able to use them and play with them.

Writers can express ideas and emotions that are important to them but have no other means of expression. Some of these ideas may be fantastic, and some of the emotions may be given clearer voice in fantastic fiction.

Most people don't see the edginess in my work. They think it's all fantasy and whimsy.

My feeling is that writing Fantasy should be harder - not easier - than writing any other kind of fiction.

I've always been much more comfortable with drawing fantasy stuff.